


The Platform of Surrender

by stellahibernis



Series: Clear Your Heart [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Love is complicated, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 12:49:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10571649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellahibernis/pseuds/stellahibernis
Summary: It’s been over three years since Bucky went into ice in Wakanda, and there’s no change in sight. Steve lives in New York, leads the Avengers and gets monthly updates on Bucky’s condition. He has his job, he has his friends, he has a life. He’s fine.He’s tired.On Halloween he decides to be someone else for a while, to hide behind a mask on the day everyone else wears them too. He goes to a club and for a moment it works, he manages to leave everything weighing him down behind.Then Steve meets a stranger, whose touch he doesn’t want to avoid.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is made into a series already, since there'll ultimately be three parts. I'll tell a bit more about this at the end notes, because I don't want to spoil the story.
> 
> As a warning for those sensitive of such things, due to the mistaken identity thing there's technically a case of slightly dubious consent here, since even if there is a consent, it's given without full knowledge of facts. However, there's no regret afterward even with the full knowledge, so it's definitely nowhere near the ballpark of archive warnings.

 

Steve rubs at his eyes as he opens the Wakandan Skype-equivalent on his laptop. He hasn’t slept well for the past few nights, or to be more honest, hasn’t slept well since he came out of the ice, really. It’s been seven and half years since he woke up in the future. Sometimes it feels unimaginably long, and other times he struggles to remember enough days to plausibly make up the years. There are long stretches of routine and not caring, in between them a few bright points, and some days that are still black with sorrow in his head.

The call connects, and Steve finds himself face to face with Mirembe, the doctor responsible for Bucky’s care. It’s been over three years, and Bucky’s still in the ice. They exchange pleasantries, and finally get to the point of the call. By now Steve is used to all the terminology to do with cryostasis, so even when she gets carried away and starts using more technical terms, Steve doesn’t have to interrupt her. It’s all as expected; Bucky is safe and stable in the ice.

She describes their research effort regarding the triggers. “We’re getting close.”

“You’ve been saying the same for months now,” Steve can’t help but point out.

They talk a bit more before disconnecting, and Steve goes to brush his teeth right after. He’s going to try to get some sleep, since for all that he knows there’s nowhere he needs to be the next day. He can relax, in theory anyway. Steve is fairly sure he’s not going to sleep easily.

In the early days and weeks after Bucky went into ice again, Steve stuck nearby. The only time he left Wakanda was to get his friends out of the Raft as soon as they’d gotten together a plan that worked. Besides that, he’d stayed within a walking distance, often in the same room as Bucky’s cryostasis pod was held, reading or sketching or just staring into the air. He didn’t look at Bucky that much, couldn’t handle how the stasis looked like death.

It couldn’t last though, and it was the combination of his friends nagging at him and changes in the political climate that had finally convinced Steve to get back into action. He’d left the shield behind in Siberia, thinking he’d do something else, only to find out he still couldn’t stay on the sidelines, couldn’t turn his back when there was something he could do.

It has been arduous work, long and difficult months, and there still aren’t guarantees that everything will stay fine, even if right at the moment things are stable. There is new international superhuman legislation in place, one that doesn’t strip them of their rights. There are Avengers again, all of them working together.

Sam has the shield now, he bears the title of Captain America, and Steve is glad that there is a continuation to it. He still goes on the field too, even if his job as a leader and coordinator these days includes a lot more paperwork and meetings. There are times when it’s all hands on deck, and it feels familiar somehow, to be carrying other weapons than his shield. It reminds him of the war. It’s probably not a good connection, and he never mentions it to anyone, but it’s true.

Steve knows he was obsessed, in the early days of Bucky being in the ice, and he knows too, that he wouldn’t be doing fine now if his friends hadn’t managed to pry him away. Not that he’s doing particularly well now either, but he’s functional, he has a purpose, and it’s a lot more than could be said of the alternative of staring into the air in Bucky’s room.

He has a lot of friends, a lot of people he cares about, but he’s lonely. Not that there’s much he can do about it.

They’ve set up a system where he calls monthly to get updates on Bucky’s condition, and in addition to that the Wakandans will reach him if there’s something he needs to know. He lives in New York again. Steve knows it’s probably good for him, helps him keep the distance, prevents him from falling into apathy again, but he hates it sometimes. The miles between him and Bucky, the years of knowing that Bucky is in the world and not being able to be together are a physical ache sometimes.

It’s been over two years since he last saw Bucky, and sometimes he fears he’s already forgetting, despite his serum-enhanced memory.

***

Steve slips out of the Halloween party held at the Avengers Tower before it’s even ten. The mood in the party has been happy and relaxed despite the semi-formal dress code for the masquerade. Steve just couldn’t find it in himself to enjoy it. All he could do was think that it was four more days before his scheduled call with Bucky’s doctors in Wakanda. Interacting and socializing felt too exhausting, and now despite his fine shoes he’s walking down the street toward his townhouse in Williamsburg. 

It’s not much like the Brooklyn he remembers, but on most days Steve thinks it’s a good thing.

There are a lot of people on the streets, and Steve enjoys the anonymity the mask he hasn’t bothered to remove provides. These days, since his job involves a lot more time in public wearing civilian clothing, he’s even better recognized than before, and the more modern hairstyle he adopted years ago no longer confuses people. Now, for just one night, he feels like just another person.

He’s home soon enough, and he pauses to stand in the middle of his living room. It feels fake, because the room looks lived in. There are books and photographs and the few potted plants that Natasha has brought him and that he diligently takes care of. There are his sketchbooks and pencils on the coffee table. The room looks very different from his apartment in DC, and he knows it indicates he’s better adjusted. He just can’t feel it. It’s like he makes all these motions of life and it’s all just pretending.

He’s tired, but not the kind that would go away with sleeping, even if he doesn’t really do enough of that either these days. He’s tired of this life, tired of not knowing what he wants. Or more precisely, he knows exactly what he wants, but he also knows it’s impossible for him to have. It’s been like that ever since he woke up in the future, bar a few days after Siberia, days when his life as he knew it had been completely turned around, but Bucky had been there. For a few days, Steve had felt light, not carrying the shield, not having any responsibility beyond his friends. He’d thought that despite all the hurdles ahead of them, they’d be able to make a life of it.

Then Bucky had made his choice, and Steve had seen all his hopes turned to ashes.

He’d gone back to duty, because it was that or to fall apart completely, and maybe he doesn’t have that in him. Maybe he never has. The idea scares him sometimes, that he doesn’t know how to break, that he’ll break and it won’t mean anything, because he will go on and on. Now he’s here, and he thinks they’ve gotten to a place where they’re making the world a little bit better with the Avengers, and it’s a good thing.

He’s just tired of it all, tired of still being the man from history books.

Steve stands there for a moment more, and then decides that this night, he’s going to not be that. He left the party because despite his friends being there, there had also been all the expectations. He wants to be nameless for a few hours, and maybe this night, when everyone wears a mask will be his only chance.

He strides to his bedroom and sheds his tux and dress shoes. He leaves the shirt on, pulls a pair of jeans to go with it, shoves his feet into boots and shrugs on the old brown leather jacket. The mask never comes off, and he’s out of the door before he lets himself think twice.

He heads for the club he passed earlier coming back home, and as luck has it there isn’t even a line. If he believed in such things he’d take it as a sign, because there always seems to be a line to the club, even on regular weekends, not to mention holidays, but he just shrugs at the good luck. 

Steve leaves his jacket and makes his way to the bar. Most of the crowd is in costumes or masks, and he fits right in, just another person looking for a good time. He orders a glass of whiskey, letting the burn make it down his throat and the smoky taste fill his senses. He’s getting appreciative looks, mostly from men, since it’s that kind of a place, he knew it well beforehand.

Steve has never really much thought about his looks, it has never been the important part of what the serum did for him. For him it has always been about what he can do, and the attention he gets for his appearance is mostly a distraction. He did like how Peggy looked at him back then, but it was because he always knew it wasn’t just because of his looks. She knew him, and liked him for all that he was. It’s the attention he gets just because of his appearance that always makes him uncomfortable.

Tonight though, it’s different. Tonight, he doesn’t want to be himself, and now people looking at him gives him a different feeling from usual. It makes him confident. Tonight, he wants to be something he normally isn’t.

Steve leaves his empty glass on the bar and makes his way to the dance floor that’s crowded enough that people bump into each other more than not, move together as a group rather than as individuals. Steve slides among them and lets go.

Dancing has never been easy for him. Back before the war he never really learned; there didn’t seem to be much point since no one wanted to dance with him anyway, and after the serum he mostly had other things to do. Some of the girls on the USO tour tried to teach him, but it was mostly in vain, since at the time he wasn’t really comfortable in his new body. That only happened when he got into Europe, when he had to push himself to save Bucky. 

He learned to dance a bit after he woke up in the future, having to attend events, but he never got comfortable with it. There was always a performative aspect to it, and he never got to the point where it was fun.

This though, this is different. There are no steps to remember, no restrictions. There’s the loud music, the pound of the rhythm, and suddenly Steve is comfortable; he finds the rhythm here like he finds it on the battlefield. This is the first time he really gets why some people like dancing, and he enjoys it too for the first time, as people have been telling he might. He just hadn’t found the right kind of dancing before. He knows he’s nothing like proficient, but he fits in, not feeling like he’s out of place like on every other dance floor he’s even been.

It’s comfortable, but he’s very aware that it’s only possible due to his temporary anonymity, that this may well be the only night of the year that he can have it. It’s only for a night but he takes what he can get, he lets go of his troubles, pushes them away and concentrates on the music, the movement and the brush of bodies against his.

Steve doesn’t know how long he’s on the floor, the songs keep bleeding into next, he moves among the crowd and doesn’t think of anything but the moment. There are men every once in a while that try to catch his attention, that run their hands over his body, clearly wishing for a dance, wishing for more, but Steve always moves away from them. Always dodging, until there’s someone right in front of him, body almost flowing with the music, and Steve can’t tear his eyes away.

The man is about Steve’s height, clearly built, although the extent of it is obscured by his all black clothing and the leather jacket hanging open. A part of Steve wonders how he isn’t entirely too hot, but the rest of him is mesmerized. The man has a stylish modern haircut, longer than Steve still is used to, a dark beard just long enough to obscure the shape of his chin, framing pretty lips. A black domino mask frames his dark eyes.

There’s something about him, he’s somehow familiar and yet not, a discord in Steve’s mind, but when the man places his left hand on Steve’s hip and pulls him close Steve lets it happen and rests his arms loosely over the man’s shoulders. He gets a smile, short and sharp for it, and he’s stunned. Steve is falling and he knows it, but he doesn’t care. They start moving together, bodies flush against each other.

There’s a pull he feels toward the man, it’s new and yet familiar, and for a moment Steve searches for a comparison. It comes to him as the man runs his hand up and down Steve’s side, sending shivers all through him. The pull is familiar, because it’s the kind of a pull Steve remembers feeling toward Bucky regularly before the train, the moments when his friend’s presence, his easy physicality just struck at Steve. Normally the realization would make Steve move away, not wanting to mix up a stranger with the idea of his friend, but tonight it’s different.

Tonight, Steve doesn’t want to be himself, and it’s not the same anyway. This is pure physical attraction, not mixed up with everything else he’s always felt toward Bucky. This is simple, and Steve decides he can let himself have this, he can act on this in a way he’s never dared to act on the attraction that he’s always felt toward Bucky. It’s not a replacement, it couldn’t be. It’s just something Steve wants right now, to feel someone close to him, nothing else.

It’s freeing, the idea of taking something that doesn’t have to mean anything the next morning.

Steve shifts just a bit closer, and the stranger grips his hip tighter. They’re breathing the same air as they move to the music even though they don’t kiss, and the beard is brushing Steve’s cheek and lips. Steve is half hard already in his jeans, and he’s fairly sure he’s not the only one.

The song bleeds into another, and it’s almost as if they’re alone despite the crowd all around them. They don’t matter, not when the man grinds against Steve, not when Steve’s head is light with the scent of some spicy cologne the man is wearing. Steve feels at home in his skin the way he rarely has in recent years.

They stay a while more, until the man draws away a bit, grasps Steve’s hand in his and pulls him through the crowd toward the exit. Steve wants nothing more than to follow.

***

They end up at Steve’s, even though right now he wouldn’t have been above just finding the nearest alley, but it is smarter this way. Especially since Steve keeps all the sensitive information and work stuff at the Tower, which means there’s nothing for anyone to see except his phone, and that’s encrypted to hell and back.

There’s also him, he realized right when he’s about to flick on the lights, and for a split second he wonders if he’s about to be let down, or if there will be a media scandal in his future. Only a hand closes over his, and fairly forcefully yanks it behind his back. The stranger, because Steve doesn’t even know his name, not that he really cares either, says, his voice almost a whisper, “No lights.” The sound makes Steve’s cock twitch, and he’s completely fine with the order. 

He’s pushed toward his bedroom, his jacket pulled off him, and Steve makes quick work on the buttons of his shirt while the man presses against his back, mouthing at his neck and roaming hands over his body. Half dazed Steve thinks that maybe it would be hot to just let the man rip his shirt open, he seems perfectly likely to do so, but in fact Steve likes this particular dress shirt, so he sheds it intact and tosses it into corner.

He turns to look at his guest, still standing there fully clothed and masked while Steve’s down to his undershirt and his belt open. Steve blinks, because the stance is just a bit familiar, and his brain is searching for explanation as he reaches to grasp his guest’s hand. Only the train of thought is lost as the man dodges, and instead grabs one end of Steve’s belt and pulls it off. Steve is left reeling enough by the act that a shove is enough to get him to overbalance. He doesn’t fight it, and falls down to sit on the bed. The man steps closer and pushes Steve’s undershirt up.

“Off,” the man says, voice still low.

Steve is happy to oblige; clearly the man is intent on taking the lead, and while Steve has never really considered it before, he finds the idea of just allowing it to happen, letting someone have their way with him freeing. He has to be in control of almost every aspect of his life, and the idea of not having to do so for a change goes into his head like alcohol no longer does.

Steve tosses his undershirt away and allows himself to be manhandled into the middle of the bed and his arms stretched up. The man loops the belt he pulled off Steve’s jeans around his wrists, binding them to the bed frame. Steve lets it all happen, enjoys the scrape of denim against his sides, the strong thighs bracketing him. He could get free, he knows it; he could break the belt and the bed frame, but he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want at all.

His cock is throbbing in his jeans, his skin feels too small and tight, every nerve ending on fire, and it’s wonderful. Steve lets his head fall on the pillow, waiting for what the man has in store for him.

The man bends down to suck a mark on Steve’s throat, and the contrast between the soft mouth and the scrape of the beard makes Steve close his eyes. He also angles his chin up giving the man a better access. There probably won’t be anything visible the next day, but Steve feels it now, and as the man makes his way downward, Steve arches his back, seeking contact against his skin. There are hands on his hips, pressing down, not hard enough to truly hold Steve, but enough to remind him to lie down and let it happen. 

Steve yelps when teeth scrape over his nipple before warm lips close over it, and it’s such a simple touch, but it overwhelms Steve. He’s on a hair trigger already, breathing hard, and he’s barely even been touched. At least the man seems about as impatient as he is, and unzips Steve’s jeans and pulls them down, his boxer briefs along with them, and only pauses to get rid of Steve’s boots. Soon enough Steve is naked except for the mask, but the stranger is still fully clothed, up to the jacket, face still hidden by the black mask and dark hair. Steve knows situation like this very easily could make him feel vulnerable or uncomfortable, but it doesn’t. Right now it makes him want this all the more.

There’s only a second of warning as the man bends down, and Steve just has time to breath out, “Oh, fuck,” before his cock is in the stranger’s mouth. It’s hot and wet, and there are fingers curled around where his mouth doesn’t reach. Steve finds himself making more noise than he usually does, babbling nonsense, pleading and moaning, and it’s no time at all that he comes. 

Steve blacks out with the intensity for a moment, breathing hard, trying to regain his composure. He thinks that maybe he should have given a warning, but considering the man decided to tie Steve down, he was probably prepared. There’s a momentary void when the man moves away, but he’s back before Steve manages to even open his eyes. He sighs to the feeling of warm mouth at his hip, and he stretches a bit but doesn’t pull at the belt tying his hands. He’s sure they’re nowhere near done, and it suits him just fine.

Steve is loose and comfortable now and probably easier to be positioned as the other man wants him to. The scratch of denim and the catch of leather are more pronounced now that his skin is even more sensitive, and Steve squirms against it, only to be pushed down with firm hands again. The man mouths over Steve’s abs, and Steve feels himself getting hard again, which isn’t really surprising. The brush of slick fingers below his balls does surprise him though, and Steve’s hips jolt, but he spreads his legs further from where he was earlier maneuvered to, giving the man a better access.

The slick finger in him is familiar in that Steve’s done it for himself, and new since it’s the first time someone else is doing it for him, and the unknown adds a level of intensity that makes him even louder than before. Steve is fully hard again, and as he slips a second finger in the man takes his cock in mouth again, and Steve is beyond words. He’s straining against the belt, knows it’s chafing, but he doesn’t care at all, it’ll be fine by the morning anyway.

Steve comes again, gasping and writhing, breathing hard. As he’s reeling to get his wits back, it occurs to him that the other man is still wearing all his clothes, and the whole thing is completely not what Steve expected. Not that he would complain; he feels better than he has in years.

The man crawls on top of him, the zipper of his jacket cool on Steve’s fever hot skin, and grinds his hips against Steve’s, asking. 

“Please,” Steve gasps, and it’s a different kind of relief when the other man undoes his jeans. Steve is feeling wonderful, as if he has been lifted into new heights, and he wants his companion to get something for it too. 

It takes mere seconds for the man to have his cock out, grab the lube, and line himself up to push in. Steve is still reeling back from his previous orgasm, and this is also something he’s never done before, but he wants this, wants it more than anything, and he plants his feet on the bed and shifts his hips toward the man. Thankfully, he takes the hint and pushes into Steve, steady and slow. 

Steve’s eyes roll back, he is filled in a way he never has felt before, and he breathes in and out, getting used to the pressure. There’s no pause though, since the man rolls his hips and Steve lets out the kind of a groan he didn’t know he had in himself. The man sets a steady pace, fucking into Steve hard and strong, and Steve just hangs on, there’s nothing else he can do, not after two orgasms and on the way to third.

There’s nothing else in his world, nothing but the brush of denim and leather against his skin, the fullness inside him, the building pressure in his cock, and Steve lets himself be carried away by the sensation, feeling his mind light and empty, nothing but this man whose name he doesn’t even know dominating every sense he has. 

Steve comes after just a few tugs at his cock after the man slips his hand between them, and he’s only dimly aware of the other stilling in him and relaxing over him, albeit catching himself before he falls on top of Steve.

Steve is half asleep after the man pulls away, exhausted by the release, and he notes the belt coming off and his arms being guided down. There’s a twinge at his shoulder joints for having held them up for so long, but he doesn’t care, he feels content. It’s maybe stupid and trusting, but he falls asleep as a warm palm smooths over his skin.

He wakes up in the morning, alone, but he’s been tucked in and there’s a glass of water on the nightstand sitting next to his mask that’s carefully set down.

***

For the next few days Steve feels great, lighter. Enough that Nat, Sam and Wanda all notice, but they leave it alone even though Steve offers no explanation. They all seem happy about the development, and Steve tries to not think of how he must have appeared in general.

Even when it comes time for his monthly call to Bucky’s doctor, he doesn’t feel the usual apprehension. The calls are both the thing he waits for and something he dreads, because there never seem to be any definitive good news, just more of the same, and Steve doesn’t know how long he can take it. For now though, it is easier. He knows it won’t last, knows he’s still riding a high on having been able to let his worries go for a bit, and they’ll definitely come back, but he’s determined to enjoy it.

His good feeling goes down several notches when he sees it’s not just Mirembe but T’Challa too at the other end of the call, and it’s only downhill from there. T’Challa explains that Bucky had asked that when he was awoken Steve wouldn’t be there, that Steve wouldn’t be informed, which he was perfectly entitled to do. Steve knows it, but it still stings, not the least for the monthly calls that have turned out to be mostly a charade. In fact, the last time he’d called, they’d already been almost ready, and Bucky had been brought out of cryostasis just days after.

It’s been weeks, and Steve hasn’t heard of Bucky. There’s a cold pit in his stomach, because his body already knows what his brain is still catching up to. The truth is right there, even if he’s not quite ready to look at it. The reason why it was so easy, just days earlier, to let go, to trust. Why after rebuffing the advances of many good looking men he’d been floored by one particular stranger. One that wasn’t a stranger at all. Even then, Steve’s body had known something his brain had refused to believe.

Truth is, Bucky is awake, his head is clear and he was even fitted with a new prosthetic arm within two weeks of his awakening, and then he’d left, saying he needed time alone. There are apologies, from T’Challa, from Mirembe, and Steve makes himself say it’s fine, makes himself thank them for Bucky’s care even if he’s not feeling particularly forgiving at the moment. He knows that if he doesn’t, if he says what’s on top of his head he’ll regret it soon after. They’ve only respected Bucky’s wishes, and Steve knows it’s the right thing to do. In truth he’s is glad that Bucky has had his choices respected, for all that it conflicted with Steve’s wishes. He’ll just have to deal.

T’Challa says there is a message for him, a letter that a courier is bringing right now, and Steve confirms he’s at his office at the Tower before saying his goodbyes and disconnecting the call. He swivels his chair toward the window and stares up to the sky, pushing all the thoughts away. There’s a myriad of them, mostly questions, but Steve doesn’t let them to the surface, doesn’t want to commit before he sees what’s in the letter.

He doesn’t expect an explanation, because the letter must have been written before their encounter, and frankly, he doesn’t think there is an explanation that would make any of this better. Steve doesn’t know what he expects, not now that life has dealt another curve ball to him, one that almost makes him wish for the dull longing again.

There isn’t much in the letter. Steve has a hard time parsing the sentences, making sense of it, and it’s only when he sees his hands shaking he realizes it’s because of anger, and more than that really. Fury. He puts the letter back into its envelope and tucks it into his safe, right at the back where it won’t be visible every time he opens it. Then he leaves for the gym.

There’s no one in the gym which is a welcome surprise, and Steve changes into his workout clothes, sets up the bag and begins wrapping his hands, concentrating on the action. He’s almost done when the door opens.

“Hey Steve, want to spar?” Natasha asks, her voice light.

“No. I want to hit things, and not be asked questions,” Steve says, knowing it’s rude, but then again she knows him well enough that he hopes she’ll understand now is not the time to prod him.

As he moves to the bag, heavy and reinforced enough to withstand him really hitting it, he sees from the corner of his eye her nod and head for the trampoline. They have all kinds of gymnastics equipment, and she’s wonderful on all of them, flipping, tumbling and balancing. Steve knows for her it’s freeing; using her skills in a way that’s not directed toward aggression. It allows her to empty her head in a way that Steve tries to do with the punching bags. He well knows his method is far less constructive.

He focuses on the bag, and somehow it helps, her being in the room, the silent companionship. He knows he’ll probably end up telling her sooner or later, but now is not the time. Right now he’d have nothing to tell, there are no words that he has even for himself.

As he works on the bag, he finally lets the questions come, and there’s a how and a why right on top. How had he not recognized Bucky? How could he not? It feels unbelievable, even though the rational part of his brain knows. He knows people are often relying on expectation, and as far as he’d known Bucky had been in Wakanda still in stasis. In his mind, it couldn’t have been Bucky, so he hadn’t even looked for him. Secondly, he’s seen it often enough by now how Natasha can shift her body language, become another person so that one might not even notice she’s right there, even without a disguise.

And Bucky’s had much of the similar training, and he’d made an effort to look different too. The unfamiliar haircut, wrong eye color, the mask. Clothes that made it harder to see the shape of his body, the unwillingness to have lights on. How he didn’t want Steve to touch him, how he didn’t shed any more clothes than he absolutely needed to. In retrospect, Steve can even see how Bucky managed to not have Steve pay attention to his left hand, even if it wasn’t obvious at the time. There must have been some kind of cover mimicking skin over it, but it couldn’t be perfect, and Bucky had made the evasion.

Then there’s the why. Why had Bucky done it at all? Why had he not let Steve know? The latter is maybe explained by the fact that they’d never been intimate, Steve doesn’t think Bucky ever knew Steve always wanted him. It had been more or less true ever since puberty, more so when Bucky had gone out with approximately every girl in the neighborhood. Less when there was Peggy, because Steve loved her, still does, really. But Bucky is Bucky, and there will never be anyone like him for Steve, it’s the only way to explain it. And Steve had long ago accepted that he can’t have what he wants. Now he doesn’t know what to think.

The fragments of Bucky’s letter come to his mind, Bucky saying he wants Steve to live his life, that it’s better if Bucky disappears, that he wants to start over. Except apparently he came to New York, gave Steve the night of his life, and now he is gone. Bucky must have known Steve would figure it out, and yet it happened. Steve doesn’t know what it means, and it looks like he might never find out.

Don’t look for me, the letter said, and for all that he is feeling betrayed, sad, and furious, Steve is going to honor that request.

***

It’s two weeks later when Steve ends up telling Natasha about what happened. They’re at his place, curled on the couch with containers of Thai take-out strewn over the coffee table. Steve doesn’t go into details, it still feels too personal even in this age where he sometimes feels like people have very little boundaries. He explains how he decided to just be someone else for a night, how he’d let himself have something he never dared, and how it had been wonderful. And now it’s all too complicated.

Natasha listens, and pulls him to her, has him settle down with his head on her lap while she runs her fingers through his hair. This kind of casual physicality doesn’t come easily in general to either one of them, but they’ve gotten to the stage where they can trust each other and are comfortable with each other.

“And you know, I’ve been thinking that maybe it couldn’t have been as wonderful with anyone else,” Steve says. “No one else even registered, I didn’t even consider bringing anyone at home until he was there. And it sucks, because both the why it was great and why it hurts are the same reason. I just don’t know what I should think.”

She hums and continues kneading at his scalp. “Do you want me to find him?”

She has kept her face impassive so far, but now Steve can tell she’s angry. And she means it, if he asked she would do everything she can to find Bucky, and even knowing Bucky’s skills, Steve wouldn’t bet against her.

“No,” he says. “He asked me not to, so I won’t.”

“It was still an asshole thing to do.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “It really was. But it doesn’t mean I should be one at him. Besides, I don’t know if I want to even see him right now.”

“Really?” she asks.

“I mean, on one hand I would, but on the other hand, it kind of depends on what he would say. And I don’t think I could take it if he said it was just because. That it was convenient, maybe.”

She nods, and seems to want to say something but thinks better of it. Steve almost asks what she has on her mind, but decides he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to hear either her telling he should just let go, or that there must have been a reason.

“But if he was standing right here, I would punch him, regardless of reasons,” Steve adds.

Natasha laughs at that. “Yeah, you’d be absolutely entitled to.”

Ten minutes late she asks, “Do you wish it hadn’t happened?”

Steve takes a moment, and really thinks about it, but his gut reaction is right. “No,” he says. Despite the pain and confusion, he’d still never trade the night for anything. She nods, accepting.

They spend rest of the evening not really talking, just eating and watching nature-documentaries, and it’s late when Natasha finally leaves.

“Whatever you need, just ask,” she says, and Steve hugs her hard. They had a few false starts, but they’ve grown into steadfast friends, and it’s one of the best things in the future for Steve.

***

On the surface Steve’s life doesn’t really change over the next weeks and months. The only change in his routine is that he no longer has monthly calls to Wakanda. The sense of waiting doesn’t disappear, though, and Steve hates it, because he knows that he probably shouldn’t wait for anything. Bucky said he wanted a new life, obviously meaning away from Steve.

Steve is waiting, even when he suspects there’s nothing for him to wait for.

The anger is still there right under the surface, and Steve knows it’s unlikely to be gone anytime soon. Besides the obvious, what gets to him is something Bucky said in the letter, in an offhand way, but it was there. That Bucky wants Steve to live his life. Apparently in Bucky’s mind it somehow means living without Bucky, as if his life had been so perfect all along. It sounds like Bucky believes that if he chooses to leave, then everything will go back to as it was, and Steve will be happy. Except Steve never was, he never really even reached a level of comfortable existence after waking from the ice. When Insight happened he still hadn’t settled into the future, and after that there’s always been the knowledge of Bucky being somewhere in the world, and that has made him a part of Steve’s life, even if they never saw each other.

Steve hates it, hates that the reasoning is partly about him. He can accept everything else Bucky says in the letter; if he wants a clean start, he should have it, but that should come regardless of what it means to Steve. Now Bucky is making decisions about Steve’s life, clearly has chosen what he sees as best for him, and never asked what Steve thinks. That’s the part that rankles.

It’s not exactly a new thing; during the years before the war they tended on occasion to end up in situations where Bucky made decisions for Steve’s benefit. Sometimes they were good ones, rarely ones Steve couldn’t stomach, but the problem was always the same. It was and is Steve’s life, he should have a say in it.

During the war after Steve found Bucky in Austria it never happened; Bucky still contested Steve’s ideas and decisions if he didn’t agree, but they talked. For all that there was a distance between them created by all the changes in them and the dark shadows in Bucky’s eyes, they’d also been more effective in communicating. Maybe it was that they suddenly didn’t know what the other one was thinking about without asking, so they made an effort to talk things through.

Now it seems that Bucky’s slipped into an old pattern, and frankly it’s one Steve hasn’t missed.

It means he seethes inside, doesn’t really talk about it even if Nat sometimes skirts around it. And he misses Bucky, misses all of him even if he’s furious too.

***

Steve falls back into the patterns of his life, and it still looks like a life and feels fake. It’s an uncomfortable thought, because so many things are real, most of all his friends, especially Sam, Nat and Wanda. They’re true and steadfast, and Steve tries to do and be the best he can for them, just as they are for him. He hopes it’s enough, to have this pillar around which to rebuild.

Because rebuild he must; he has mostly floated since he woke up from the ice, he’s worked and made connections, but he’s been hesitant to truly put down any personal roots. Maybe he has to now, maybe he has to give up on the half formed dream that points to a future that’ll never be real. What he has is real, and even though it’s not exactly what he wished for, there are still good things in it. It’s up to him to grasp it and make it enough, and so he tries.

Steve tries the hardest he can, and sometimes it feels like he’s faking it, but those days get less frequent. Sometimes he finds himself settling in, finally accepting that this is his life now. There’s the work, there are his friends, there are quiet evenings spent reading a book or puttering around his home, slowly renovating and redecorating the place. It starts to look less like a pretension of a home, something he should want but doesn’t, and more like a place that’s his.

There are gaps, Steve sees them as his home settles into its shape around him. There’s a window with good light, but there’s no easel, no canvasses. Maybe there can be, one day. Steve hopes anyway. He hasn’t painted since he left for the war, even if he knows the resources he’d have would be on a whole new level, with money to buy proper supplies. He has a sketchbook, and a whole pile of full ones besides, and he keeps drawing into it almost like it’s a journal. It’s one of his touchstones.

There’s another kind of a gap, an empty space to be filled. Even if he’s making his home the way he likes it, he’s still leaving space for someone else. Because he does want a companion, someone to be there with him, to share his life. He accepts the idea now. It just seems difficult to find someone suitable. Steve wants someone who he can share all of his life with, not just parts of it.

The space is there, but for now it doesn’t seem there’s any likelihood of it being filled anytime soon.

***

Steve is just as diligent as ever with his work, both on field and off. It’s sometimes boring, sometimes entirely too exciting, sometimes what should be nerve wracking is boring instead, and on those moments he knows that all their priorities are shot, or maybe it’s just how they deal. Just another bunch of bad guys, another day that ends with a y.

For all that Steve has been through, for all that he’s survived, he ultimately knows he’s lucky. He always acknowledges it in his head. He’s got enough experience too to know that in all probability the luck will run out one day. And it does.

It’s not anything dramatic in the usual scale, it’s just another day on the field. He isn’t doing anything too reckless or even particularly heroic, it’s just his day, he supposes. There is pain tearing through him, his legs go out from under him, and for the second time in his life he knows he’s about to die.

The sounds around him are distant, his vision is shot, and his life is flowing away. There are hands on him, a flicker of the familiar red curls. He’d say goodbye, but it’s too late for that. It’s the end, just as he’s known for a long time it was likely to happen. Not for some great cause but in the course of ordinary life. 

His eyes go dark, and the feeling of peace is the last thing he knows.

***

For the second time in his life, Steve is surprised to wake up. He’s not in pain, not exactly, but there’s the kind of awareness that he’s been given something to numb it, and that if he moves the pain will come nearer to the surface and he’ll feel it. There is the low hum of machinery near his head, the by now familiar sounds of a modern hospital.

The first thing he sees is red curls again, this time vibrant against the sheet where Natasha’s head rests by his hip. She’s asleep, not in her field uniform anymore but there’s a streak of grime on her forehead, so she probably hasn’t taken time for a shower. She has a steady hold of his hand, and she’s resting her cheek on it.

On the other side of the bed Wanda is also asleep curled up in the only comfortable looking chair in the room. She has her hand stretched out, holding a loose grip of Steve’s elbow. At the foot of the bed Sam is sleeping in one of the not very comfortable chairs, his feet resting on the bed against Steve’s. They all keep a physical contact, as if to make sure Steve is staying put. He can’t really blame them.

Nat, Sam and Wanda being there isn’t a surprise, but they’re not the only ones. Bucky is leaning to the wall a few steps away from the bed. He doesn’t look much like the last time Steve saw him; the beard is gone and his hairstyle is different, shorter than it was in Bucharest but a bit longer than he ever kept it back before the war. His gaze is steady on Steve, and he meets Steve’s eyes without hesitation.

There are a million things Steve wants to say, but he doesn’t know where to start. Bucky is there, more than a year since they last saw each other, although maybe Steve should just count it as over four years, considering the last time he’d only known after the fact.

“Is this your ploy to avoid getting punched, coming to see me when I’m at the hospital?” Steve finally asks when silence stretches and he’s getting sleepy again.

“I’d much rather you were able to punch me.”

“Yeah, me too.”

They fall quiet again, and Steve thinks back to the last years, thinks of what they’ve been to each other and what they haven’t. He thinks of what he can and what he cannot deal with, thinks he’s done getting his heart chipped into smaller and smaller pieces.

“Why are you here, Bucky?”

Bucky looks stricken at the question, surprised as if he never expected Steve to ask such a thing. Steve doesn’t have it in him to regret though, because it’s a fair question. It’s not like Bucky has stayed even once after they found each other again during the Insight debacle.

Bucky looks like he’s searching for words and doesn’t find any, so Steve decides to ask the other question on his mind. “Would you have come back if I hadn’t been hurt?”

Now Bucky looks at Steve, not hesitating with his answer. “Yes. This maybe made it happen faster, but I was going to come back.”

Steve is nearly falling asleep again, he thinks he’s slurring a bit when he talks to Bucky. “See, you say that, even when in your letter you said you wanted to stay away, wanted a clean start. So I don’t know what to think, what to believe. You leave and you come back and I never know what’s going to last. I don’t know what we can be any more.”

Steve drifts off again, but before it he feels Natasha squeeze his hand, and the last thought he has is to wonder for how long she was only pretending to sleep.

***

When Steve wakes up again he can tell it’s been half a day at least and that his usual rapid healing has done its job. He’s still sore but well on the way to mend. Bucky is sitting in the chair Wanda occupied earlier, leafing through a battered book, and everyone else is gone.

“I’m surprised Nat left you here alone with me,” Steve says.

“They all went to get some rest after the doctor said you were going to be fine. She said she’d cuff me to your bed if it wasn’t pretty much futile considering. So she just threatened to come and drag me back if I left again.” Bucky pauses for a second. “I wasn’t going to leave.”

Steve wants to believe, but he’s not sure if he can. Not yet.

“I told her, last year,” he says instead.

“Yeah, I figured. She doesn’t really like me for it, so I’m a bit surprised she let me in at all when I got here.”

“I think she has her reasons, for both. I think the first one is entirely deserved,” Steve can’t help pointing out.

“I know. Believe me, I do. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I can tell you how it was for me, what happened, if you want. I know it won’t make it okay, I don’t expect that. Just, if you want to know.”

Steve thinks about it for a moment. “Later, I guess. Not now.”

They fall into silence again, and Steve keeps staring into the ceiling, conscious of Bucky next to him. Somehow, weirdly, it’s not awkward, even if there are mountains of issues between them. Starting with what happened between them on Halloween the year before. It’s not like it used to be before Wakanda; when Steve was just happy to be with Bucky. It’s more complicated than that now, but it’s not difficult.

“You’ve got to stop trying to dictate how I should live my life,” Steve says later.

Bucky hesitates a bit. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Steve huffs. “In your letter, you said you wanted a clean start. But you also said I should live my life, as if the only way for that to happen was for you to leave. You never even asked if it was what I wanted, you just assumed it would be better like that. And you know, if you want a new start, I get that, you should have it. But don’t make it about me, as if you’re making some kind of a sacrifice when it’s not what I want.”

Bucky is lost for words, stricken. “I didn’t think you’d look at it like that.”

“Yeah, you never did, before the war. I kind of thought we were past that, though.”

Bucky looks down to his hands, licks his lips. “I can promise I’ll try to do better.”

“That’s good enough,” Steve allows. “But you know, I still don’t know what we can be, from now on. It’s weird, it just occurred to me, I thought I was going to die, earlier. And when it happened, I didn’t think of you. Not once while I was losing consciousness. I don’t know what it means. I never thought that could happen.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes closed, as if in pain, and Steve looks at him, looks back to his life, how they ended up here. He feels like he’s standing at a crossroads, a myriad of paths ahead of him, countless choices. He has no idea which is the right one, what the future holds.

“We know it will never be the same,” Steve says, and finally voices the thought he’s been carrying inside of him ever since he knew Bucky was alive. “I just don’t want us to be nothing.”

Bucky’s eyes are still closed, he’s still holding himself rigid, but he dips forward, down and down until his forehead is resting on the mattress next to Steve’s hip. Steve lays his hand over Bucky’s head, buries his fingers in the messy brown hair, and relaxes against the pillows.

He’s chosen a path, and he’s walking forward, even if it’s still shrouded in uncertainties.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the notes at the beginning, this is the first fic in a series that'll have three parts in total. It was meant to be a one shot as is, but then I started writing and my heart just couldn't take leaving them at such an unsteady place. Hence, there'll be one for Bucky, that timewise overlaps with this one, so we get a view of what's going on in his head here. And the third part is moving forward. Not promising anything about the schedule for the other parts, I need to figure out what I want the angle to be first.
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://stellahibernis.tumblr.com/)


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